1. Technical Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to semiconductor devices; and, more particularly, it relates to semiconductor devices that interface with each other, some of which may operate using different clock signals.
2. Description of Related Art
Those persons having skill in the art of semiconductor devices will appreciate the need for interfacing between the various devices within a system. Oftentimes, these various devices must synchronize their operations with each other. Sometimes, this is performed by operating all devices within a system with common clock (CLK). However, this is sometimes simply not possible. For example, some of the various devices require a different CLK. The CLK may have certain characteristics with respect to frequency, duty cycle, drift, and precision among other characteristics. In certain cases, the various devices require various characteristics for their requisite CLK. The situation can become even more complicated when certain of the devices have sub-portions that operate using different CLKs. For example, some of the components may be more insensitive to a CLK's precision. These differing constraints may present a great difficulty in interfacing the various devices within a system.
There is sometimes even greater difficulty in interfacing the devices given the relatively few available pins on a device. For those approaches that have limited pins, there is even greater difficulty in interfacing the devices given that the desirable real estate between the devices are required to support other functionality. There is little availability to hard wire multiple CLKs to a device in such applications where real estate is at a premium. When there are not a large number of available pins, there is an inability to strap the device externally to the proper CLK.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional systems will become apparent to one of skill in the art through comparison of such systems with the invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.